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Bruce doesn’t get it.
The thought burns at the back of Jason’s head as he swings towards Felipe’s apartment. It’s the only thing he can think through the rage and grief - the deep dark pit yawing wide in his stomach.
He doesn’t get it. He’d seen Gloria’s body - those pale, bruised legs swinging lifelessly. Her head limp, long blonde hair tangled over her shoulders. He’d probably felt a similar grief to Jason: they hadn’t gotten there in time, they’d failed.
But that’s all. He doesn’t have the memory of his mama, lying still on their threadbare couch, her thin wrists clasped in the grip of bigger hands, her face screwed up. He doesn’t remember throwing himself at the scummy dealer on top of her, beating at him with pathetic fists, the snatch of fingers around his bicep, then, abruptly, down his pants as the dealer sneered in his ear. Doesn’t remember the pain.
Jason’s mom had fought, then, clawing at his hair and wrist, trying to pull Jason free. Her dealer had backhanded her to the floor, then gotten back on top of her and kept raping her while Jason had curled on the couch, his hands over his ears and his dick aching.
That dealer had killed his mama just like Felipe had killed Gloria. Maybe not directly, but he’d killed a part of her that she’d never gotten back. She’d died slowly, withering, until there was nothing of the woman who’d raised him left.
So when Jason lands on that balcony and startles the monster who’d raped Gloria, he’s thinking about his mom and Gloria and the kid he’d been. And he’s angry enough to do something stupid.
“Robin!” Felipe says, laughing. “You came to visit?”
He has a drink in one hand and a cigar in the other. When Jason had landed on the balcony, he’d been leaning over the railing, staring out at Gotham without a care in the world.
“I came to make sure you pay, Felipe,” Jason growls, furious. How dare he? How dare he be standing here, enjoying himself, while Gloria is in a body bag.
“Pay?” he makes an exaggerated face of surprise. “But of course I can pay. I could piss away more than that pathetic bitch was worth.”
Rage surges up Jason’s throat. He snarls, launching forward, fist already swinging towards Felipe’s face. It connects with a satisfying crack. Felipe’s head snaps backwards. Jason knees him hard in the ribs. He makes an ugly choking sound and drops to the floor.
Jason follows him down, bracing his knees on either side of the man’s chest, gripping his throat with one hand and reeling the other back to belt him in the face again. Felipe jerks. Something hard presses into Jason’s gut.
“Hit me again, pendejo, and you’ll be shitting out of your stomach.”
Jason freezes. That’s a gun. A tiny little handgun, but still a weapon, pressed against him.
Felipe grins up at him. His teeth are bloody, one cheek already starting to swell. But he doesn’t look bothered. He looks like he knows he has the upper hand.
“You don’t scare me,” Jason says, but he doesn’t hit Felipe again. Doesn’t move. The gun is a threat. And he doesn’t doubt that Felipe will use it.
“I think I do,” Felipe says. He presses the gun harder into Jason’s stomach. “Why don’t you lie down for me, sweetheart?”
Something cold twists in Jason’s intestines. He thinks of his mom’s dealer. He hadn’t needed a weapon to control them. Jason’s mom had been weak and so had Jason, small and malnourished. He’s Robin now, strong and capable of fighting, but with the gun against him, he feels like that little kid again.
He shuffles back. The gun moves with him. Felipe pushes himself up onto his knees, until he’s looming over Jason. Jason swallows hard. His jaw is so tight. He feels like he can’t breathe.
Bruce has taught him how to disarm someone pointing a gun at him. He hates guns, but he’d taught Jason that. Right now, Jason can’t seem to remember how. He can’t think.
“Go on, then,” Felipe purrs. “You were a big man two seconds ago, weren’t you?”
“Fuck you,” Jason spits.
Felipe backhands him hard enough that Jason hears his cheek crack.
He manages to stay upright for a moment, swaying dizzily on his knees. Then Felipe hits him again, splitting his lip and sending him crashing to the floor. Jason has taken harder hits before but something about this feels different. He feels uncoordinated. Stupid with anger and fear. He lashes out with one leg, connecting solidly with Felipe’s thigh, eliciting a pained grunt.
The bang of the gun going off is shockingly loud. Jason flinches. Shards of shattered tile hit his cheek. The gun is hot when it presses back against him, sliding almost gently over his jaw.
“You’re too pretty to be so stupid, parajito,” Felipe says. He’s leaning over Jason now. Jason thinks of Gloria. Of the fact that she must have seen Felipe just like this. “I don’t want to blow your pretty little brains out, so why don’t you just lie there like a good whore, huh?”
He pushes between Jason’s legs. The sky above them is grey. It’s always grey in Gotham. Jason stares blankly up at it. They’re up on the balcony, in full view of whoever might be looking to see Robin, spreading his legs for some disgusting rapist. Tears prick hot behind his eyes.
Maybe that isn’t what Felipe is intending. Maybe he just wants to make Jason feel small. Wants to make himself feel big. That’s all this is to men like him. Mom’s dealer hadn’t grabbed him because he’d desperately wanted to feel Jason’s dick. He’d done it because it had scared Jason and his mom and assholes like that got off on that shit.
Jason is scared now. He knows Felipe can see it. He’s scared of the gun, which has shifted to dig into his ribs. He’s scared of the way Felipe is kneeling over him. Of the hand at the waistband of his shorts.
They’re tugged free without ceremony, followed shortly by Jason’s underwear and the protective cup. Felipe leers at him. Jason shuts his eyes and tries not to think. Tries to be anywhere else.
Cruel fingers grip his junk before retreating. There’s the wet sound of Felipe spitting. Then a thick finger is worming between Jason’s cheeks.
“Wait,” he gasps, even though it’s pointless. Pleading with men like Felipe only excites them. “Wait, please.”
“All you whores are just the same,” Felipe laughs, as he forces his finger into Jason. It burns, although it’s not an impossible stretch. Jason flinches. His neck strains. “Begging for it in one breath, then fighting me the next.”
“Fuck you,” Jason whimpers. “Stop. I - I don’t want this.”
“Of course you do, cariño,” Felipe says. “Everybody does.”
The finger slides free. Jason doesn’t have time to feel relieved before something thicker and hotter is pressing against him. His breath catches. It’s Felipe’s cock. Felipe’s cock pressing against him, inside him.
Where is Batman? Jason had snuck out while he’d been distracted with Gloria, but he should have realised Jason is missing by now. He should be following him. He should be here. He’s going to save him.
Except, it’s too late for Jason to be saved, because Felipe is thrusting into him. Jason’s body fights him, clamping shut against the intrusion, dry and unwelcoming.
Felipe curses. Leans back enough to spit onto Jason, before pushing back in. Jason’s body gives up the fight. He screams. Can’t help it. It hurts. It hurts.
He claws at Felipe’s chest and shoulders. Writhes, his legs kicking out in a desperate attempt to get away. Felipe presses an arm over his collarbones, leaning heavily on it to pin him down. The gun drives into his ribs.
It hurts so badly that Jason can hardly believe it. Is this how it had felt for his mom? Not just the physical pain, which is so sharp it’s almost blinding, but this terrible dark hole caving his chest in. This horrible wrenching sense of wrongness.
No wonder she’d given up, Jason thinks, tears leaking out of the corner of each screwed up eye. No wonder Gloria had killed herself rather than suffer through this again.
“Fuck, you’re tight,” Felipe grunts. He’s lying over Jason, his body so heavy Jason can barely breathe, his face close to Jason’s. “Gloria was sweet but she had nothing on this. Perky little ass just begging to be filled.”
“Stop,” Jason wheezes. Something’s torn inside him. He feels all hot and wet down there and every time Felipe pushes into him, it’s like he’s shoving a shard of glass inside. “Please, please.”
“That’s right, parajito, beg for me.” He grips Jason’s throat, squeezing hard enough that panic flares through Jason’s whole body. “God.”
Jason wishes he could go numb, shrink away inside himself the way he’d done when he was curled on that couch, but the pain is too strong. Felipe is so encompassing. All of Jason’s senses are taken up by him, the smell of alcohol and cigarettes, the weight of him, the curl of his hair sticking to his neck.
“Please,” he whispers.
Felipe groans. His grip tightens even further, his hips speeding. Jason manages a strangled moan of pain.
There’s a thud of impact. Felipe shouts and Jason screams as he’s ripped out of him. A huge dark shadow blots out the sky for a moment, before barrelling Felipe into the ground.
Jason tries to scramble upright, but agony shoots up his spine and fuzzes his head and he has to lean back against the ground to keep from throwing up.
There’s a roar that seems to shake through Jason’s bones. The crack and wet thud of fists against flesh. Jason blinks through his tears and sees Batman on top of Felipe, punching the man in the face, his mouth twisted furiously below the cowl.
“B,” Jason croaks.
Batman’s head whips up. His fist hovers in the air, drawn back tight. He makes a strangled sound, hits Felipe once in the temple, grabs his now limp arm, and clicks a pair of cuffs over both wrists.
“Robin,” he says, staggering to his feet. His voice is bleak, like the same hole in Jason’s chest has hollowed out the words. “My god.”
Jason squeezes his legs closed. He tries to fumble for his shorts but isn’t sure where they’ve gone. He’s exposed like this. Batman can see every disgusting part of him.
“B,” he sobs. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
Bruce kneels heavily beside him. He reaches up and detaches his cape, sweeping it across Jason. It settles thick over his body. Jason grips at it, desperately grateful to be covered.
“It’s okay,” Batman says. He cups Jason’s swollen cheek gently. He doesn’t look like anything is okay. “I’m here. You’re okay.”
“I didn’t -“ he chokes on his tears. Tries to sit up. Can’t stop the pained noise that squeezes out of his throat. Batman catches him gently by the shoulder and holds him up. “I didn’t want him to - please, I’m sorry.”
“Of course you didn’t,” Batman says, horrified. “Don’t apologise, baby. I’m so sorry I didn’t get here sooner. Are you - how badly are you hurt?”
How badly? Jason doesn’t know. He doesn’t have a frame of reference. It feels like maybe he’s dying, but he knows he probably isn’t.
He blinks at Bruce, the filmy tears spilling over and filling the lenses of his mask. “I - uh - I dunno.” He sniffs. Swallows painfully. “Did it - did it hurt that much for my mom?”
“Your mom?” Bruce asks, gently. He tucks the cape a little tighter around Jason.
“When he raped her.”
“Who raped her?”
“Her dealer,” Jason says. He feels strangely distant. Lightheaded. “He wanted to - I tried to stop him but he shoved his hands down my pants and mom - mom fought him off but she couldn’t stop him either.”
Slowly, so Jason has time to pull away if he wants, Bruce slides one arm around Jason’s back and the other under his knees.
“I don’t know, sweetheart,” he murmurs, as he lifts Jason into his lap. Jason groans as pain flares at the movement. “I’m sorry that happened to you.”
Jason leans his head into Bruce’s chest, feeling the rumble of his voice. “Not to me,” he mumbles.
Bruce’s arms tighten. One big hand shifts to cup Jason’s head, holding it gently in place. “It sounds like it hurt you, baby.”
Jason tries to shake his head, but finds he can’t move it. Bruce shifts to stand and Jason groans again. Bruce shushes him.
“I’m sorry,” he murmurs. “It’s okay. I’m going to get you back to the cave. I know it hurts.”
“I think he - think he broke me.”
Bruce makes a terrible, wounded sound. “He didn’t, sweetheart. You’re going to be okay.”
Jason shuts his eyes. Would it have been different if his mom had someone to hold her gently and promise she’d be safe? Would it have been different if there’d been someone for Gloria to go home to?
Or is Jason doomed just like they were?